Survival
It should be expected that there is more to life in the wasteland than just trying to shoot raiders and dodge incoming fire from plasma rifles. Every living thing on this earth must eat, drink, and rest. Even if your heroes manage to slay hordes of deathclaws and platoons of Enclave Tesla-troopers, hunger and dehydration will end the life of any wastelander as sure as a 10mm bullet to the head. Radiation, if gone unchecked, will cause debilitating sickness that will continually poison the body till a wastelander is reduced to a glowing corpse on the side of a road, and even the weather, hot or cold, can provide an unprepared traveler with an untimely demise. Here following are the rules for keeping your adventures nourished, hydrated, rad free, and comfortable* in their post-apocalyptic playground. *Please note that in this case, "comfortable" means not losing appendages to frostbite or vomiting from heat stroke Radiation The bombs may be gone, but their danger is not quite over. In a land rife with fallout, it is important to know how radiation effects the body, and how resistant your character is to it. Radiation, or "RADs", are gained in a number of ways, the most common being the consumption dirty food and drink, or traveling through irradiated locations. Radiation Poisoning: Non-Ghouls Each person has a limit to how many Rads they can have in their system. For every 100 rads in a player's body a progresively worse penalty is applied due to Radiation Sickness. But should the Rads go uncheck and reach 500 then they will begin to suffer from steady organ failure and die within the next 4d6 hours unless their rads can be dropped below 500. NOTE: Ghouls handle Rads differently then other Races, see Radiation Poisoning: Ghouls below for information Radiation Poisoning: Ghouls Ghouls Handle Radiation rather differently than other races. Because of their natual ability to expel Rads from their system and huge resistances, a Ghoul is able to go places, eat things, and generally handle amounts of Rads that would kill an average Human. While not technically fatal, Rads will cause Ghouls to lose their minds due to mild cognative deterioration if they are exposed to massive radiation for long periods of time. If a Ghoul's INT ever falls below -3 then they turn feral and become aggressive to all Non-Ghouls until their INT can be raised by reducing Rad penalties. Rad Resistance Each character, depending on Race and END have a natural resistance to RADs. This is a percentage that is used to determine how much of an intaken RAD can be harmlessly broken down and processed by the body. To figure out this number first find your player's Racial RAD resistance, then add your END-based RAD resistance to this. Using RAD Resistance Whenever an adventurer is exposed to radiation, be it from eating, travelling in an irradiated are or being shot with the nefarious radiation gun, the amount he or she is exposed to is reduced by their RAD resistance. Should this number contain a fraction, round up from the second decimal, Ex: 1.453 = 1.5 All rads are counted one number past the decimal Ted of the Wilds wants to eat a Molerat Steak he has just cooked up. Ted has a RAD resistance of 14%. A chunk of meat from a mutated animal gives 18 rads when consumed, but Ted's RAD resistance reduces this by 14% making it only 15.48 RADs. 15.48 rounded one point past the decimal is 15.5, so Ted only takes 15.5 RADs from eating the irridiated meat. Racial RAD Resistance *Humans have a 10% bonus to RAD resistance *Ghouls have a bonus of 20% to RAD resistance. *Super Mutants have a bonus of 25% to RAD resistance. Endurance RAD Resistance Use the following equation to determine your RAD resistance based on Endurance Dealing With Radiation Humans and Super Mutants naturally drop their radiation at the same amout as their healing rate (6+EN) per day. Ghouls do not naturaly loose radiation. There are also many cures out in the wastes such as Rad-Away and Glow Ointment. Hunger and Thirst Hunger Each character has an amount of hunger, or "HNG", that must be sated to stay alive and nourished. Larger, bulkier characters typically take more HNG to keep going than smaller, more wiery ones. How much food it takes to keep a character alive is determined by four factors: Racial hunger base, END and STR representing aditional bulk and size, and AGL to conserve energy. If a chcaracter does not consume their HNG level in food that day, the next day they will receive a penalty to their stats and skills that will increase for each subsequent day that they do not meet that need, and if prolonged for long enough, the character will die. Please read the Starvation and Dehydration section below for information on starvation penalties, and read the Food and Water page for information and values on food and how to sate your HNG rating. If you eat and drink more than is required for that day, it carries over to the next day's value. However, you cannot have more than two days worth of food or water in you (today's and tomorrow's). Racial HNG Modifier All races are different and better or worse at surviving out in the wastes. After hunger is calculated, multiply the result by the racial modifier to determine how much more or less food they need. All races have a base hunger of 15 which is modified by stats. *Ghouls, being leaner, metabolicly hardier and more self-sustaining, need less food to stay alive than the average human. 75% Hunger *Super Mutants, hulking and muscular, require more food due to their large size. 150% Hunger Endurance and Strength HNG Modifier With great power comes great metabolic responsibility. The stronger and hardier you are, the more food you need to keep going. Both Endurance and Strength increase your Hunger Requirements, and wirey Agile characters require less food. Total HNG Level Your total HNG should be calculated like this: Example: Here is an example of how to calculate a character's HNG: *Ted of the Wilds has END 2, STR 1, and AGL 1 *Ted is Human, so his base HNG modifier is +15 *END 2 and STR 1 = +3 HNG, so thats 15 + 3 = 18 *AGL 1 = -1 HNG, so thats 18 - 1 = 17 *Ted must eat 17 HNG worth of food every day or get hunger pains and penalties. Thirst Sure it's nice to have food in your belly, but it's good ol' life-giving water that can be the real issue out in the wasteland. If it's not scarce, it's irradiated. If it's not irritated, it's being guarded by mercenaries. And if it's not being guarded by mercenaries, well... just hope you can bottle enough up before some mercenaries DO show up. Thirst, or "H2O" works almost exactly like hunger, in fact, your H2O value is the same as your HNG value, but 10 higher (though they are separately tracked: eating doesn’t hydrate you of the time, and drinking water doesn’t nourish you). If you do not satisfy your H2O, the next day you incur a penalty, increasing daily till your character dies of dehydration. Starvation and Dehydration Penalties If your character fails to eat or drink enough to meet his or her HNG or H2O these are what will occur: Starvation Dehydration Sleep Everybody (except Robots) needs 6 hours of sleep every day. After 24 hours without sleep, characters begin taking stacking penalties until the can sleep for 6 hours for every 24 they've been awake. Caffeinated beverages can temporarily alleviate the penalties for sleep deprivation, but the only real treatment is bedrest. Heat and Cold Humans, Ghouls, and most domestic animals are comfortable in temperature ranges from 15 Celsius to 25 Celcius and can survive in ranges from 5 to 35 with minimal grumbling. Heavy clothing and personal air-conditioning can extend these ranges. Every 10 degrees below 5 Celcius, characters take -1 to all rolls due to distraction and discomfort. Every 10 degrees above 35 Celcius, they take the same -1 to all rolls and must drink an extra 10 H20 of water per day. Characters who spend more than 24 hours in unsurvivable temperatures will die. Super Mutants and Robots are generally immune to penalties from environmental temperatures.